Apple’s New Video Announcement Explained

Apple’s newest announcement promised that “video arrives this spring,” but the bigger question is what actually changes for creators who aren’t sitting on network budgets or ad deals. We break down Apple Podcasts’ new HLS video support, why launch partners are all ad-driven networks, and what dynamic video ads could mean for revenue sharing. More importantly, does this shift help independent podcasters grow, or does it mostly refine the playback experience for audiences you already have?

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Transcript

Alban: 0:00

All right. So uh which of you two has been talking to the press? Oh, me, for sure. What did we say? I was gonna say what's going on. Well, I'm just starting, but Pod News Weekly Review comes out, and there's a bit in there from Sam Sethy saying that Buzz Prout's definitely never gonna do video. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And I've been waiting for this announcement internally.

Kevin: 0:22

And then so that was a bit news to me. Did you talk to Sam at some point? I listened to the episode, I know what you're talking about. He said it twice. Once he said it when he's just talking to James, and then he said it in his the his interview with Justin Jackson with Transistor. Oh. And I I think I'm quoted, I maybe I shouldn't quote. This is like a loose quote, but I think he said something like Buzz Sprout said that hell will freeze over before they do video or something like that.

Jordan: 0:45

That sounds like something you might say, but I don't think you did.

Kevin: 0:49

That's the impression he got somehow.

Jordan: 0:51

Okay.

Kevin: 0:52

You know, benefit of the doubt, I think it's fair that Sam could have that impression. But I think it we should probably clarify that that's not true. Our position has always been as three podcasters that do this show, BuzzCast, we're not super interested in video.

Speaker: 1:06

No.

Kevin: 1:07

And it has also been, you know, so that plus, we love audio podcasts. Like love, love, love. I do not love video podcasts. That's been our position. There have been some like private PSP meetings and stuff like that where Buzz Sprout, like I've represented BuzzSprout, and I've said, I'm concerned that there's not a real business model behind video podcasting. And we've talked about that on the show. The idea that if we yeah, like right now we take audio files and we distribute those, if we started doing that with video files, there's uh the cost is much higher. And I'm not sure that enough, like, you know, prosumer indie podcasters would be willing to fork up the money to be able to actually cover the cost to pay for that service. And that like we'd have to charge enough to cover our costs, plus have a little bit of margin there to pay for the technology and the salaries and all that kind of stuff. When we're competing against free, and I'm putting free, gosh, if this was a video podcast, you could all see it, but I'm doing air quotes. It's because it's not really free.

Alban: 2:06

You've just thought about video podcasting and you're already becoming a video podcaster when you do it. You never reference like what you're talking about. Everyone is just like yelling at their radio in their car because they're like, what are you pointing at?

Speaker: 2:18

Yeah.

Kevin: 2:19

So the problem is you're competing with again, air quotes free platforms like YouTube and Spotify that will host your video for air quotes free. It's not really free because they're, you know, they're making money on it somehow to cover those costs. They're putting ads in, or even if they're not putting ads in your particular show, they're watching your engagement on that show that's leading you to another show that has ads in it and stuff. So they're covering their costs through this massively complex addictive system that they built.

Speaker: 2:46

Yeah.

Kevin: 2:46

And that justifies them hosting video without charging you for it, but there is a cost and it is being paid for by somebody. Bus Rad doesn't work like that. And so if we decided to add video podcasting, we're gonna have to charge for it. And I don't just concerned. Are there going to be 10 people that are willing to pay $100, $200 a month to host their video podcast? Yes. But are there going to be, you know, $10,000? And we need it to be at the 10,000 level before we're, you know, before it makes sense as a business because it costs us millions to build it out and to support it with you know, support staff and programmers and designers and podcast producers and everything else that goes into running, you know, a medium-sized business. Yeah. So to clarify our position for Sam and the rest of the world is not that we will never do video podcasting. It's a we haven't figured out how it makes sense yet. So, right now, at this time, as of today, and as for the past 16 years of Buzzsprout's been around, we've never figured out a way for it to make sense. As soon as we do, then video podcasting will come to Buzzsprout.

Alban: 3:46

As far as help freezing over, in my personal life, it absolutely has frozen over. Cause if I said one thing I would never do, it was short form video. And now I'm doing just like three to five shorts a week and posting them on all sorts of platforms and real people in my life now are like my neighbor texted me and she was like, Oh, I didn't know you did TikTok. And I was like, Oh, great. Yeah, that's who you are.

Jordan: 4:13

Never say number.

Alban: 4:14

Hell is frozen over in the in my life already. Here we go.

Kevin: 4:24

All right. Well, let's get to the news of the day, though.

Jordan: 4:27

News of the week, I would say. Okay. Yeah. Apple Podcasts has really been stirring up some excitement among the podcasting community because they released an announcement that was titled Video Arrives This Spring, which I found to be really interesting because Apple Podcasts has had video for a very, very long time. But what they meant to say is that a new way to do video podcasting arrives this spring. I think it's a little bit of confusion. So can one of you explain quickly what this is, what they mean by video arrives this spring?

Kevin: 5:05

Sure. What they're talking about is when you say a new type of video podcasting in the past, if you wanted to do video podcasting and Apple Podcasts, you had to have a completely separate RSS feed to do that. So you'll see some shows will say, like this week in tech audio, you know, like in parentheses or something like that, or this week in tech video. There's two different feeds and you subscribe to the one that you want. And the way that technically that's being handled is that the audio version of that has an audio file linked in the RSS feed and the video version has a video file linked in the RSS feed. Now what they're doing is they're saying we want it to be able to all live in one feed, so we're using some new tech to do that. They actually, this is weird, I think, from Apple that they're actually talking about the technology and they're using, you know, the acronyms and stuff. They're saying HLS video is coming to Apple Podcasts. Yeah. And I'm like, good lord. Like, did anybody think about like what Steve Jobs would think about this? Like he would never introduce it like that. HLS video is coming. No, it's just video podcasting. And even on their support docs and stuff, they're they're mentioning HLS video. And I'm I I understand they have to differentiate between these two things because Apple Podcast now supports video in two different ways. But it just felt very unaple y in a way that left a bad taste in my mouth. They dove too much into the tech. Anyway, let me explain the tech real quick because it's it's not that complicated. But HLS, it stands for HTTP live streaming. This is not, it doesn't have to be live, but it can be live. And it's basically just multiple versions of a video file chunked up into a playlist. And so that as you're watching video, if your bandwidth like throughput changes, if it gets higher or lower, it can adapt. So it can give you lower quality video if you're driving through a tunnel or something like that, and higher quality video if you're, you know, at home on fast internet. And it can do that seamlessly. So it makes for a very good video playback experience. That's what they're talking about supporting. The bigger thing though isn't the tech, which is why I don't know why they didn't just lean into this. The bigger thing is that they're redesigning the apps, the interface, so that video is more like featured and prominent within the Apple Podcast application. So if there is a video associated with an episode that you're watching, it's very easy to toggle between the video and the audio. Yeah. And I'm assuming they'll probably like, I don't know. I think it like it looks like it's all going to be landscape stuff, not vertical video. And the app, you know, adjusts probably if you want to watch full screen. It's bigger than if how it was before. But it looks like all these changes are coming and will be available to you, whether you're doing the old version of video on Apple Podcasts or the new HLS version of video on Apple Podcasts. So that's what I thought was a little bit weird on Apple.

Alban: 7:37

Yeah, some of the reasons why HLS is at least interesting, so it's still going to be served by the podcast hosts. They announced, I think, four partners, like ACAST is one of them. It's more like bigger, some of these bigger podcast hosts that are hosting shows with lots of ads, like top 0.01% shows. What they'll do is the podcast host distributes the file. So Apple still never holds it, but they will be kind of the middleman between the podcast listener, now the podcast viewer, and the podcast host. And so they'll send those files through, but they'll also be facilitating this new dynamic video ad idea. And so it's kind of like, I don't know, this is I think unique in the podcasting ecosystem. Over on YouTube, YouTube serves up dynamic ads and they stick it in whenever they think it's appropriate. Over on Spotify, they will sell ads on your network, but the files are all hosted by Spotify. And so if they put in ads uh dynamically, they're doing that themselves. But Apple has set up this interesting, I'm not sure I fully understand how this is working, but the file is being streamed from the podcast host. The podcast host goes, hey, based on what we know now, we want to set up, send this video file, and they can inject it and it can show up on the person's phone. And Apple has worked out a pretty nice arrangement where they will one facilitate that, but two, get some small, I'm not sure how consequential it is, but some small cut of that ad revenue.

Kevin: 9:18

Yeah, and it sounds like it's a transactional fee for every dynamic ad that you serve up. Now I can I can talk about this. The great thing here is we're not one of these launch partners, so we don't have an NDA. The downside is that we don't really know what we're talking about. I'm just kind of assuming this is probably what they're doing.

Jordan: 9:36

So great.

Kevin: 9:38

So take this all with take this all with a grain of salt. But I I think what they're doing is in order to tell Apple that you have a video version and it's an HLS video version, you have to use their API to do that. It's a private API. And so a podcaster will not be able to set this up without working with one of their partners. The partner's gonna be under contract with them. And I imagine when you notify them through the private API that there is a video component to this and it's HLS, and here it is, they're probably also gonna want you to disclose whether it has it's like enabled for dynamic ad insertion or not. So then they know to monitor it and they can look for ad servers or whatever. And that's probably their checking on their half. But they also are probably putting you under contract where you probably have to self-report how many different ad impressions you served up, and then they want to be able to do checks and balances on both sides. So roughly that's probably what's happening. Again, we're not one of the launch partners, so I don't know for sure, but I imagine that's what it's like. Then Apple says they're going to go to your ad provider, whatever ad service you're using, and they're gonna basically invoice them and say, you need to pay us this much stuff. So we would also have to disclose who the our ad partners are and all this crazy stuff.

Alban: 10:37

And I think that's gotta be why there's four partners and they are calling them partners because there's got to be some sort of contract between the launch partners, ACast, Art19, Omni, and Simplecast. Yep. There's got to be a contractual agreement between if you're going to send us video this way, you have to let us know when there's these dynamic ads, or we have to have some way of identifying that. And then you will pay whatever the contractual rate is.

Kevin: 11:06

Right. And all of the launch partners are not just podcast hosting companies, they are also ad providers.

Jordan: 11:11

Yeah.

Kevin: 11:11

So ad ACast has their own Simplecast uses AdWiz, they're owned by AdWiz. Art19 is Amazon, and Omni Studio is Triton Digital. And so they're not going to be having to go through a third-party ad providing network because all of these companies are hosting and they are their own ad providing networks. And so that's why I think it made sense for Apple to launch with them because we don't have to talk with multiple parties. These parties do all in one and we want to get some cut of that revenue. And I imagine the contracts are pretty complicated. Now, in the future, Apple says we are going to bring this, we're going to expand this program, we're going to bring this to more people. And it's possible that they might say, hey, if you're not doing dynamic ad insertion in the video, that maybe we could just pick it up through an alternate enclosure or something. Maybe there's another terms of service that podcasters have to agree to, but maybe it's a little bit less complicated. Maybe you don't have to generate an API key. I don't know what the future holds, but I want to be optimistic around the fact that this could be simpler for podcasters to get into when they want to make it available to the everyday podcaster.

Jordan: 12:12

Yeah.

Kevin: 12:13

But I think it's important for anybody listening to the show. Like I it's my belief that this is not available to the everyday podcaster. Even if you said, Oh, I do video first and video is my main platform, and I just use Buzzsprout for the audio, but that's not mainly where my audience is. So I need to get video into Apple Podcasts. I think if you go set up an account on ACAS and say I want to do video podcasts and I want to get into Apple Podcasts and I want to use all this new tech, this HLS streaming and stuff like that, I think they're just going to say, Great, we're going to add you to the wait list. And it's probably going to be the same wait list that you'd be on if you're at Buzzsprout. That's just my impression. I don't know that for a fact. But I think that the reason they launched with ad-specific partners is because it's really only going to be for the largest shows initially, the shows that are already video first and the shows that are already are using these ad networks. Yeah. And these networks have gone to Apple and negotiated this system so that they can control the ads. And Apple has said, fine, but if we build all this stuff and give you control over all the ads, how are we going to make any money? How do we justify our cost to do all this? And they've negotiated, well, we'll give you a cut per impression.

Alban: 13:13

All right. So where does that leave? You know, the PSP was doing a lot of work on HLS streaming. And I really feel like Justin over Transistor was kind of leading the charge for this for quite a while. And I know they had some podcasts they'd hooked up and were running HLS streaming and they'd gotten some apps on board. Where, what does that mean for their ships?

Kevin: 13:33

Well, I would hope that anybody who sets up a partnership agreement with Apple to be able to do HLS streaming with an Apple Podcast, you've already done the heavy lifting. So you've already negotiated the contract with Apple, you've already signed the partner agreement, you've already built the tech to be able to encode audio and video in HLS format. You've already built the manifest files, you're already serving all that stuff. So why not just add one line to people's RSS feed that links to an alternate enclosure? It won't break Apple Podcasts, it won't break Spotify. Because the way the RSS works is if a if a reader, like a listening app, doesn't understand the tag, it just skips it. So it's not going to break anything. And then for those podcast apps that can read it and do understand it, then those experiences would be available over there. So, like PocketCast, for example, has said that we're going to explore HLS video streaming in PocketCast. And so when they come out with that feature, if you're doing this, theoretically, that would work. It's not super interesting to anybody listening to this podcast, but there's a million different ways to do HLS. And I'm assuming that Apple has been has figured out their flavor of HLS. So they probably said we want a 48480p and 720p and a 1080p version of the video, and we need a separate audio and all this stuff. The good thing about that is that when you have like one power player come in and just say, hey, here's how we want it, then that kind of like by default becomes a standard for everybody. Yeah.

Speaker: 14:54

Yeah.

Kevin: 14:54

And so that'll be nice because otherwise you'd probably be getting all different flavors of HLS with different people. And you'd be like, hey, look, whatever. Podcast host XYZ just launched video hosting and they're only doing it for $50. And Buzzsprout's doing it for $100. And Transistor's doing it for $200. Why? Like, why are they all different? I'm just going to go with the cheapest one. Well, because they might just be encoding your video at very low quality only one time. And Buzzsprout might be doing it three different levels of quality, all the way up to 1080p. And Transistor might do a pro package where they do 4K video.

Speaker: 15:25

Yeah.

Kevin: 15:25

And that's $200. And that's the price difference. But that's hard to explain to people when they're just like, I'm looking for a video podcasting host, and here's one for $50, one for $100, and one for $200. And I don't really understand the difference. So I'm just going to go for the one for $50. So I like that Apple is like, okay, we're getting into this. We're a big player. Here's how we want it. And then I figure most people then, like most third-party companies, if we ever get into this stuff, we'll at least have some sort of prior art to follow.

Alban: 15:48

Yeah. And we've seen this happen before with Apple, the way that they take artwork and episode artwork and chapter artwork. And they're like, okay, here's what we want. Want it in the RGB color space. We want it to be 3,000 by 3,000, has to be an exact square. And they give you those parameters. And when they give them to you, they end up becoming default for everybody. And everyone goes, oh, 95% of podcasts already follow one way. So we're all going to follow the exact same. Same with uh podcast categories. You could imagine podcast categories that don't exist in Apple Podcasts, but they're not specified by any RSS feeds because Apple came up with a list and everyone else went, that list looks pretty good. And then now I know it's a locked and definitive list.

Jordan: 16:32

Right. I'm thinking about the independent podcasters who might be feeling a lot of pressure now. You know, it feels like video podcasting has just been taking like a big hold of the podcasting space, of the news space, because ever since YouTube started getting into podcasting and started doing like their whatever their version of like RSS integration is. And then last month, Spotify announced some sort of like partnership with some things for video podcasting. And now Apple is announcing that they're kind of coming out of like this dormancy of video podcasting and doing it like a second way. And so I think that a lot of podcasters are feeling the pressure of like, oh, like video podcasting is picking up. But I'm going to reiterate again, like for most podcasters, it doesn't make sense to create video podcasts in the sense of like budget, because, like we were saying, like it's expensive, depending on how it's hosted. It can cost a lot of time and effort. Making video takes so much more time than just creating audio content. Additionally, these apps like YouTube and Spotify, they have an algorithm where it makes sense that they would be serving up video to new audience members. I don't think that Apple is to that space yet in terms of like discoverability. And so you're adding this extra layer, but you're not getting the payoff of the algorithm that like Google has, right? There's all these different things to think about. I don't think that at this point in time, normal, like everyday small niche podcasters should worry about video unless they have a reason to be serving up video, like a lot of visual aspects and things like that.

Alban: 18:16

Yeah. I mean, a point to the your comment about the algorithm. The algorithm is it's two-sided on all the platforms where there is the algorithm. Obviously, the discoverability is a positive, but the negative is that everybody else is discoverable. So you built a relationship with an audience, they've subscribed to your YouTube channel, but we could have 120,000 people subscribe to our YouTube channel and put up a video that gets 300 views because YouTube doesn't think it's the best thing to share. So I'm explicitly hell will freeze over before I ask differently. I am asking Apple. Please don't do that. I don't want all that. Um of the really nice things that about the setup they have now is they are making a really nice way for people to consume content from the creators they actively opt into. They also have discoverability areas in Apple Podcasts. So if you want more shows, and periodically, you know, you run out of all the episodes that are in your queue, you want to go find stuff. They may highlight some that are video podcasts or maybe have an Apple Podcast subscription hooked up to it or whatever. Oh, yeah. But at least you're once you've built the relationship with a listener, you have confidence that those episodes are going to show up in their feed.

Kevin: 19:30

I think you guys are both dead on about this. So in today's pod news, James linked to a short quote at the bottom of his newsletter from Ashley Pritchard, who I don't know and I don't follow, but I clicked on it because it was interesting to lead into it. And I love the way that she put this. She said, The reason video podcasts matter is YouTube. YouTube has an algorithm that puts your content in front of people who've never heard of you. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, and YouTube has engagement tools that let you actually interact with your audience. Apple Podcast has none of that. And I think that is so important to remember for any podcast creators who are feeling this pressure to get like maybe now's the time I jump into video. I don't think so. The power of video was discoverability. That has been around for since 2005, I think YouTube launched. It has been around forever. Nothing has changed there. And if you want to do video, then do it for sure. But the most important and impactful place that you will put that video is on YouTube. That doesn't change. And like Alban mentioned, until Apple starts doing, like putting an algorithm in and making it more of a discoverability engine, then that doesn't just because they've added video, it doesn't change the fact that it's not really going to help you grow. And here's the other point is that I think as podcast creators, we are much more sensitive to this stuff. So we're reading the news that's happening in podcasting. And there's a lot of news around video, especially over the past couple of years, because YouTube has gotten interested in it as a new revenue channel for them, quite frankly. And Spotify's done the same. There's a lot more money to be had when you have someone's full attention instead of their partial attention. So if you have their eyes and their ears, that is worth more to an advertiser than just their ears. Especially when they might be doing other things, like where they can't give you a hundred percent of their focus because you're driving a car and navigating traffic or walking up.

Alban: 21:28

People are hopefully are not clicking links when they're driving and listening.

unknown: 21:31

Right.

Kevin: 21:32

Right. Or, you know, doing a workout where you're also thinking about like what, you know, what rep am I on and how and you know, how far, like what's the incline on my stairmaster? All this kind of stuff happens. I guess stairmasters don't have inclines, treadmills, whatever. So, all of that to say that, yeah, hey, maybe video is something you're interested in, but don't feel any more pressure just because Apple is adding it. That's not the reason to feel pressure. The reason to feel like if you might want to do videos might be because you like it or because you have more time that you want to invest in your show, you have more money that you want to invest in the Equipment where maybe you've just always wanted to do your hair before you record something. These are good reasons to get into video. It's not just because Apple is putting it or uh giving a better user experience basically in the Apple Podcast app. And that is really the perspective to have. I don't also think that most people who are not in the podcasting world who know that I am, they'll ask me for show recommendations all the time, or what are you listening to, or what's happening in the world of podcasting? I'll tell them about podcasts all the time. You know what they never asked me? Is that a video show or is that an audio show? They don't ask me. I don't think they care. I think I tell them, oh, have you listened to this? And they say, no, I haven't. And then they go either in Apple Podcasts and look for it or Spotify. It should, it should be in those places. Preferably both. Again, BuzzCast, we break the rules. We're not in Spotify, but your show should probably be in both. And maybe some people look in YouTube. And you should do your audio podcast in YouTube. I believe. You should just try to be anywhere somebody might go look for your show. And then when they find it and they click play and they're listening to it, I don't think they care. If it's video, they're like, oh, this is a video show. So maybe I can't watch it right now because I was going to go walk the dog. I'll watch it later if I have time. Oh, it's an audio show. That's fine too. Like, I just don't think people care.

Alban: 23:04

Yeah, one thing I'd add, Kevin, is the press release and even um Netflix podcasts, and this has happened a few times where the news kind of goes out to everybody. And the impression is if you have a podcast, you need to make sure you're in Netflix. You need to make sure you're in Amazon Music, you need to be on Pandora, you need to be doing video for Apple Podcasts. And the reality is, you know, Netflix podcasts are really just video versions of some really some shows they licensed. So we're talking hundreds of shows, maybe a hundred shows, not anybody can get in there. Apple Podcasts is pretty limited right now. Pandora Forever was extremely limited, even though they've let you submit your show and never get in.

Jordan: 23:46

Yeah.

Alban: 23:47

When this starts getting opened up and indie podcasters get in, I think our commitment is we make sure we understand how people can get in, what the best avenues are, what the best strategies are, and then figure out what's BuzzSprout's version of that. And if we do support it, teaching people how to do that. And if we don't, showing them the best podcast host that does support it for indie podcasters.

Jordan: 24:11

100%. All right. Well, I hope that this cleared up any confusion on a BuzzSprout's stance on if hell will freeze over before we do video, and also what video podcasting actually means for the everyday creator. So until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.